It's a car! It's a plane! Actually it's both at the EAA AirVenture

Sam Bousfield talks about his flying car during a news conference at EAA AirVenture. He said Samson Motors' Switchblade should be in production sometime in the fall of 2018 and will have a 400 mile range and cruising speed of 160 mph. It will be a kit build, which can be purchased for $140,000 once production begins.(Photo: Joe Sienkiewicz / USA TODAY Network)

OSHKOSH - It's not yet "The Jetsons," but someday — perhaps sooner rather than later — flying cars will be as common as both cars and planes.

Commuters stuck in rush hour traffic always think, If only I had a plane, I could be there by now. And plenty of pilots fogged in by bad weather wish they could just drive their plane where they need to go.

So it's not surprising that companies and entrepreneurs have tried to invent a commercially viable flying car for decades. Still, few vehicles are actually capable of flying and driving today, and none are rolling off an assembly line anywhere.

But at EAA AirVenture — where engineers and dreamers come to show off their ideas — a few prototypes are on display this week, as is an initiative by ride-sharing company Uber to move people around by air instead of car.

"People tell me all sorts of reasons why flying cars aren't already a thing: regulations and safety," said Sanjay Dhall, founder of Detroit Flying Cars, as he stood next to a prototype he hopes to fly next summer.

"But the real reason is compaction — taking the span of an airplane and compacting it into a midsize car so I can park it in my garage," Dhall said Thursday at the week-long aviation convention.

Sanjay Dhall, founder of Detroit Flying Cars, stands in front of a prototype of his flying vehicle at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh Thursday. Dhall's innovation is to telescope the rear and front wings into the car so that it can be parked in a garage.(Photo: Meg Jones / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Dhall patented technologies that telescope, turn and lock wings that compress into the front and back of the two-seat vehicle when it's on the road. He hasn't come up with a price because he's still testing the vehicle, which will feature an electric engine for driving and an aviation engine for flying with a flight cruising speed of 125 mph and range of 400 miles.

Sam Bousfield, CEO of Philadelphia, Pa.-based Samson Motors, this week talked up his car/plane hybrid known as the Switchblade because the wings fold underneath the vehicle like a knife. Standing in front of a sign that proclaimed his creation the "World's First Flying Sports Car," Bousfield said the problem with planes is that most places people want to go — work, church, shops — don't have a landing pad.

"We spend most of our time on the ground, but the future is in the air. This gets you there," said Bousfield.

The Switchblade is a three-wheeled vehicle considered an experimental motorcycle. To solve the problem of instability with front-wheeled trikes, the center of gravity is in the rear. The body produces lift on its own like a space shuttle, Bousfield said, and it features a ballistic parachute for emergencies.

The target price is $140,000 for the kit plane/trike, which means it will be similar to home-built kit planes where folks buy all the parts and plans and assemble it themselves. In most states it will be considered a motorcycle, so owners only need to go to their Department of Motor Vehicles for certification.

Bousfield expects to make his first manned flight in late fall and then sell kits 12 months after that. So far, 57 customers have paid deposits, and 200 more are on a waiting list.

"It's a matter of design. People in the past have tried to make a flying car but they didn't have the materials. This is all carbon fiber," said Bousfield, adding that the Switchblade has the power of a 2017 Corvette. "This is high performance in both modes. That's why we call it the first flying sports car."

Uber's product chief came to Oshkosh to explain the ride-sharing behemoth's plans for what amounts to aerial taxis. They're not flying cars in the sense of a car that flies or a plane that drives but Uber Elevate plans to use fixed wing, tilt-rotor electric aircraft that lift off helipads dotted throughout cities, with four customers sharing a ride.

Standing on the stage at AirVenture's Theater in the Woods under video screens showing what Uber Elevate would look like, Jeff Holden explained that in a few years people will pull out their phone, tap the Uber icon and instead of pushing the button picturing a car, they'll push a plane button.

"Urban mobility is not a solved problem. Many cities are gridlocked; some workers have no way to get to their jobs," said Holden. "Think about the day when Uber Air starts and you push a button to get a flight."

What it won't be is a helicopter, which Uber is ruling out for noise and safety reasons.

The company has so far signed agreements with Dallas and Dubai to build landing pads using existing helicopter routes and eventually have so many that it will be easy to get around, perhaps with Uber car drivers to take people to their final destination.

Holden said Uber plans to launch Elevate test flights in 2020 and start moving paying customers to their destinations in 2023. The company hasn't set a price for Elevate rides, but Holden said as more routes and aircraft are added, it will likely become cheaper.

"We're very ambitious. We want this all over," said Holden.

Another company demonstrating its new technology is Kitty Hawk, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, which some have dubbed a flying car but which looks more like a big drone with a seat on top to be flown over water.

The electric vehicle is scheduled for demonstrations on Lake Winnebago at the AirVenture sea plane base, though Thursday morning's demo was canceled because it was too windy. The prototype features two pontoons and is considered an ultralight by the FAA, which means a pilot's license is not required to fly it.

"We want to make flying easy and fun," said Ellen Cohn, Kitty Hawk communications manager. "We can't wait to see how people will use it."

Operated with two joysticks, the Kitty Hawk flyer can fly for only three minutes and reach an altitude of just 15 feet. But Cohn said a sleeker model will be released and sold later this year that will allow for flights of 15 to 20 minutes at speeds up to 25 mph. The company hasn't set a price yet.